Megan Rapinoe may have achieved international recognition as an Olympic gold medalist and a two-time World Cup champion, but her twin sister, Rachael Rapinoe, was just as much of a soccer powerhouse — especially when they were kids.
“I always remember Rachael being the best athlete I knew,” Megan told GQ in 2023. “Certainly the best in our household.”
The twin siblings were born on July 5, 1985, in Redding, Calif., to parents Denise Rapinoe and Jim Rapinoe. According to Sports Illustrated, Rachael is technically the oldest and was born 11 minutes before Megan.
Denise, a steakhouse waitress, has two children — Michael and Jenny — from a previous marriage. She met and married Jim, a general contractor, and together they had son Brian and the twins. They also took in Denise’s youngest sister and Brian’s son, Austin Rapinoe, who needed care during his father’s struggle with drug addiction.
Megan and Rachael learned to play soccer from a young age and went on to play for the University of Portland together. Rachael had a promising career in the sport until a torn ACL forced her to hang up her cleats when she was 26.
Here’s everything to know about Megan Rapinoe’s twin sister, Rachael Rapinoe.
They were raised in Northern California
Rachael told GQ in 2023 that she and Megan grew up on a four-acre rural property outside of Redding, Calif., in a town called Palo Cedro. Their mom started waitressing at Jack’s Bar & Grill when they were 22 months old, while their father worked as a contractor.
The twins idolized their older brother Brian. In a 2015 interview with U.S. Soccer, Megan said she and Rachael followed him everywhere, including tramping through the woods and fishing for crawfish in the creek.
Even though Rachael was the shier of the two twins, she still displayed the same bravery that her sister Megan is known for. Jim and Diane told Sports Illustrated that as fifth-graders, the twins had no problem standing up to their school’s bullies on the playground — even if those bullies were in the eighth grade.
They learned to play soccer together
Brian told U.S. Soccer that he taught Megan and Rachael how to play the sport when they were 4 years old. He would take them to a soccer field across the street from their house every day and run drills.
“We honestly just wanted to be like him, so we followed him around to his practices and games, mimicking whatever he did on the field,” Rachael told Kari Gran in 2023. “He stopped playing at a young age, but we fell in love with the sport and realized in high school it was our vehicle out of the small town we grew up in.”
When Brian was 15 and the twins were 10, he got arrested for bringing meth to school, per U.S. Soccer. He continued to battle his addiction throughout his adult life and spent the next 20 years in and out of jail. He was released in January 2022 and has since been clean for more than two years.
Megan outed Rachael in college
According to GQ, Megan and Rachael both accepted offers to play soccer for the University of Portland in 2004. Megan came out during their sophomore year. Rachael was secretly dating another woman on her team at the time, but started attending a church that promised to help her “pray the gay away.”
In January 2006, Megan came out to her mom Denise — and outed Rachael in the process. Rachael, who didn’t come out on her own until after college, told GQ that, at the time, she felt blindsided and betrayed by her twin sister.
“It was not my thing to say and irresponsible to do so, and a little bit reckless,” Megan told GQ of revealing her sister’s sexuality. “I knew that I’m gay and I knew there was nothing wrong with it … I kind of threw Rachael into that, and I don’t think she was ready.”
She played professional soccer
Rachael was a force to be reckoned with on the soccer field. Per her Portland Pilots bio, she played on the No. 1 nationally-ranked club soccer team during high school, finished second in the 2003 U-19 National Championships and scored nine goals and seven assists for the Pilots when she filled in for Megan as a forward while she was recovering from an ACL injury.
According to GQ, Rachael blew out her own ACL during a game in the fall of 2007. After fighting a bacterial infection and six weeks of recovery, she returned to the soccer field in 2008 and injured the same ACL again. Though she briefly made a return to play international soccer — first for a women’s team in Iceland and then in Sweden — she later fractured her ankle in a co-ed match.
That third injury made her hang up her cleats for good in 2012.
She struggled with an opioid addiction
Rachael told GQ that she was first prescribed Vicodin when she was 21 after one of her surgeries. By the time she was 24, she was addicted. Rachael said the combination of her injuries and coming to grips with her sexuality left her feeling “very sad and depressed and alone.”
“By the time I was 26, I had taken more opiates than anyone should have in their entire lifetime,” she told Gaingels. It wasn’t until she started experimenting with natural pain management techniques, including CBD and THC, that she was able to stop taking Vicodin in 2010.
In 2019, Rachael launched a CBD wellness brand for athletes called Mendi, which she ran for several years before announcing on Instagram in January 2024 that she was closing up shop.
She runs soccer clinics with Megan
In 2009, Rachael and Megan co-founded Rapinoe SC, a nationwide network for youth soccer camps and clinics. According to an interview with the Portland Pilots, the twins connect promising young players with active professional players to help foster their development.
Per Sports Illustrated, Rapinoe SC almost went under in 2016, when Megan joined Colin Kaepernick in kneeling during the national anthem. Rachael said she hid the many hateful emails that flooded the company’s inbox from her twin sister.
Rachael last promoted the company on her Instagram in 2018.
She’s in a relationship
Rachael hasn’t spoken about her love life in interviews. However, in January 2024, she shared an Instagram post featuring photos of herself vacationing in Hawaii with a woman and two kids.
The post was captioned: “Launching into 2024 with our sun-kissed cute little party of 4.”
Rachael previously dated American soccer player Nikki Stanton in 2022, according to Stanton’s Instagram.
She’s a proud dog mom
Rachael adopted Angelo, a pitbull-boxer-Plott hound mix, in 2019 when he was a puppy. According to a 2020 Instagram post, he shares a birthday with Rachael and Megan.
“Happy 1st Birthday to my little man, Angelo,” Rachael captioned a series of pictures from a birthday hike with the dog. “Gave us the gift of Mt. Hood for both our special days.”
Source: People
